The Invincible Season 3 Finale Shows Why The MCU Is Failing

This article contains spoilers for “Invincible.”

Three seasons in, it’s safe to say that “Invincible” is one of the best shows on TV or streaming. It’s visually stunning, buoyed by the talents of a star-studded voice cast, and has some of the strongest writing of any genre series currently airing. The show is as good as it’s ever been at the end of season 3, and some of the more expensive comic book adaptations on the block could afford to study “Invincible.” The Marvel Cinematic Universe, in particular, could learn a thing or two from the season 3 finale alone.

After a season consisting mostly of episodic storylines, character building for Oliver (Christian Convery), Eve (Gillian Jacobs), and Cecil (Walton Goggins), and Mark (Steven Yeun) growing into his own responsibility, the last two episodes are a hard shock to the system. Fans of the comics would have been ready for the “Invincible War” arc, in which a revived Angstrom Levy (Sterling K. Brown) attacks Earth with a team of evil Invincibles from across the multiverse. But if you didn’t know they were coming, the devastation from Levy’s assault and the subsequent appearance of Viltrumite warrior Conquest (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) probably knocked the wind out of you.

It’s a brutal finale, both because of the unprecedented destruction and death toll seen on Earth and because of the emotional impact on the characters. However, despite its impressive spectacle, “Invincible” always lets the characters’ stories drive the action. More often than not of late, though, the MCU has been doing things the other way around, which is part of why the Disney franchise has been struggling over the last few years.

Although “Invincible” is full of ridiculous characters, bright costumes, and sci-fi/fantasy ideas, it succeeds because it always stays grounded in the emotional lives of its characters. Omni-Man (J. K. Simmons) is compelling because of the conflict inside him, which drives a ton of the overriding story. The same goes for Mark’s growth and development as a hero, brother, and boyfriend — especially in season 3. It’s fitting that in a season where Mark is constantly confronted by his own relationship to violence, he ends up having to fight hyper-violent versions of himself. The Invincible War is as much a thematic climax as it is an action climax, which is why it hits so hard.

The same goes for Conquest — a villain so indicative of the larger Viltrumite threat that he doesn’t even have a real name. Conquest represents everything that Mark fears: a destructive force so powerful that there’s nothing he can do to save the ones he loves. In the end, the lesson is that he doesn’t have to do it all himself. Eve revives herself and ultimately delivers the blow that weakens Conquest to the point of defeat.

Now think about the last several years of Marvel Studios storylines. Anthony Mackie is a great actor, but “Captain America: Brave New World” falls flat because it gives him very little material. The franchise thrived during the Infinity Saga because characters like Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) had consistent, long-term arcs around which the larger conflicts revolved. Seeing Tony go from a selfish playboy to his ultimate sacrifice was the heart of those early MCU phases. It’s the same reason the “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies were so successful, and why people love “Loki.” But what characters are driving anything in the larger MCU story now?

It’s not just about individual arcs. Characters exist in relationship to one another — something that “Invincible” understands very well. Season 3 contains multiple romance arcs, vendettas, and other complicated relationships. During the memorial service for Rex (Jason Mantzoukas) at the end of “Invincible” season 3, multiple supporting characters stand up to speak, and they all have distinct feelings about his death because we saw their own unique relationships with him.

By comparison, one of the downfalls of Marvel’s scattershot star model is that it keeps the characters apart from each other. This has been especially true in the Disney+ era. It’s too expensive and difficult from a scheduling perspective to get multiple core characters on screen together for more than a couple of scenes per year. The older “Avengers” movies worked because they provided that context for relationship-building, but we haven’t had one since “Endgame.”

Obviously, “Invincible” has the benefit of being a single TV show and not a massive franchise. It’s tighter, cleaner, and animation makes it much easier to keep a large roster of talent on tap. That said, I can’t help but feel like this one series has more characters I care about than the entirety of the MCU at this point. “Invincible” season 3 in particular does a fantastic job of giving meaningful, compelling material to most of the supporting cast, from Shrinking Rae (Grey Griffin) to Titan (Todd Williams). You don’t need three movies and two streaming cameos to make viewers care about someone, you just need intentional writing — something the MCU has severely lacked in recent years.

It’s impressive how many disparate story threads “Invincible” keeps active at any one time. Sure, they may not all be present in each episode, but it’s a masterclass in balancing setups and payoffs. Each storyline on the show feels like it’s on its own timer, and those timers are lined up perfectly so that just as one goes off, three more hit pivotal moments of their own. Just look at the closing montage of “Invincible” season 3, which brings back several dormant threads while also showing various characters completing season-long arcs.

In the early MCU, even in a movie franchise model that didn’t allow for the smooth storytelling of television, Marvel Studios did a decent job of doing the same thing. The overlap of the different sub-franchises, larger villains like Hydra and Thanos, and the building dynamic of the Avengers team all developed in sync with one another. It wasn’t exactly high art, but it was enough that when “Infinity War” and “Endgame” came out, directors Anthony and Joe Russo had a deep bag of emotional currency to cash in on with fans.

The current Marvel Studios model seems more interested in keeping the various characters and series separate, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However, the House of Ideas has struggled to balance that division with the massive budgets and “event viewing” goals of the past. If you don’t want everyone to have to watch everything, then you can’t expect “Avengers” sized audiences. With DC Studios about to kick off its new era, Marvel may have a shrinking window to figure things out.

“Invincible” is streaming on Prime Video.